During this year’s Homecoming Weekend, the Alumni Association Board will recognize six distinguished Colorado College alumni for their outstanding contributions to Colorado College.
The Louis T. Benezet Award recognizes outstanding achievement in one’s chosen field and excellence through success, innovations, and research that advances a profession or a cause and which exemplifies the values of a liberal arts education.
Henry Ansbacher ’92 is the winner of the 2012 Benezet Award. Ansbacher is a film producer who has garnered four Emmy Awards and an Academy Award nomination for his productions. He is known for using film and audience engagement to effect change through his non-profit organization, Just Media, dedicated to making movies that bring social injustices to light.
The Lloyd E. Worner Award recognizes outstanding loyalty, service, and generosity to Colorado College as evidenced by continuing concern for students and future excellence of the institution.
This year’s Worner recipients are Barbara Keener ’67, Robin Dunn ‘06, and Ari J. Stiller-Shulman ’06.
Barbara Keener is a member of the core graduate faculty at Capella University, School of Education, Gainesville, Fla., where she designs and teaches online graduate courses, develops and markets specializations in college leadership, and directs and mentors dissertation research. She is a past-president of the Alumni Association Board, reunion committee member, special projects volunteer and a generous financial supporter of CC. Robin Dunn ‘06 and Ari J. Stiller-Shulman ’06 are Worner recipients as the co-founders of the AppreCCiate Scholarship Program, the first such program to be initiated and funded by students. Dunn and Stiller-Shulman made the program a success and drew attention to it by biking across the United States. Dunn is a former member of the Alumni Association Board and currently an M.D. candidate (2015) at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Stiller-Shulman, from Denver, served on the Alumni Association Board for nearly four years. He is a candidate for the Juris Doctor degree at the University of Colorado Law School in Boulder (2013). He is a law clerk at Petros & White in Denver.
The Spirit of Adventure Award is awarded to the alumnus who represents the CC experience through intellectual, social, or physical adventure.
Sylvie Fadrhonc ’07, is this year’s recipient. Fadrhonc’s plans to become a physician assistant after graduation were placed on hold when a car accident left her paralyzed from the waist down. She was a volunteer coordinator for the Telluride Adaptive Sport Program where she created outdoor programs for the disabled and became a strong advocate for outdoor participation for the disabled and for disability awareness. She now lives in Harrisburg, Pa., where she is in physician assistant school at Lock Haven University and will graduate in 2013.
The Gresham Riley Award recognizes staff and faculty at CC who have made a significant contribution to the college.
Ron Smith, who retires this summer from his position as director of campus safety, is this year’s Riley Award recipient. Smith, from Colorado Springs, spent two decades in the U.S. Army as a law enforcement specialist. He began working at CC in 1991 and became campus safety director in 2009. Smith has made a significant difference in the lives of CC students daily and has been one of the most beloved figures on campus, particularly for his humorous and poetic safety awareness bulletins.